Plan 9 From Outer Space

July Killer B Cinema is out of this world! Starcrash and Plan 9 From Outer Space will not disappoint! The perfect double bill and all for the low, low price of $5. That’s right FIVE DOLLARS! And there will be trivia with prizes! Spacesuits are optional! Audience Participation approved!

Starcrash (94 minutes) is a 1978 American space opera film directed by Luigi Cozzi and written by Cozzi and Nat Wachsberger. The cast includes Marjoe Gortner, Caroline Munro, Christopher Plummer, David Hasselhoff and Joe Spinell.

Plan 9 from Outer Space (80 minutes) (originally titled Grave Robbers from Outer Space) is a 1959 American independent black and white science fiction film, written, produced, directed, and edited by Ed Wood, that stars Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson and Vampira (Maila Nurmi). The film also posthumously bills Bela Lugosi as a star (silent footage of the actor had actually been shot by Wood for another, unfinished film just prior to Lugosi’s death in August 1956). Plan 9 from Outer Space was released theatrically in 1959 by Distributors Corporation of America (then credited as Valiant Pictures).

Each month join Lizzie Violet & Zoltan Du Lac for a double bill of B-moves from the 1930s to 1970s!

Thank you to the Imperial Pub and their staff! They make our monthly event extra amazing!

We hope to see you at The Imperial!

Important: The Imperial Performance Space is a licensed establishment, outside alcohol is not allowed. Anyone in possession of outside alcohol will be banned from both the event and the establishment. We appreciate your co-operation in this matter.

Rain, rain, go awayCome again some other dayWe want to go outside and playCome again some other day

Raise your hand if you sang this nursery rhyme as a child. I did then and am singing it now. It’s pouring here right now and isn’t going to be letting up until Monday, which is fine on one side of the coin since I am looking after my mother and am writing. However, on the other side of the coin — ENOUGH WITH THE RAIN ALREADY — I want to be able to go outside, go for a walk, get some exercise. I know, I know, stop complaining, it could be worse, we could be having a drought. Blah Blah Blah Blah. Seriously, it’s overcast, gloomy and my kinda weather, minus the rain. Seriously, I want to go outside and without an umbrella. Ok. Enough of the whining.

When it’s raining, I love to watch schlocky 1950s, b-movie, horror, and sci-fi. The schlockier the better. When I’m not at home and near my DVD collection, I’m grateful for YouTube and the growing selection of bad, I mean b-movie selection. There is such an incredible selection and one could easily spend days binge watching. Some of my favourites are movies such as The Screaming Skull, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, Plan 9 From Outer Space (actually any Ed Wood Jr. movies), Eegah!, The Manster and all of the Universal Monsters pictures.

The dream is to have my own schlock horror channel. It is one of my projects to be started after I get the first draft of my novel finished. I will also need to purchase a light and some clip-on microphones, but worst case, I can borrow these items till I can get my own. Channels such as Macabre Theatre and many of the ones I watched as a kid inspired me. I even wrote a blog about it, that you can read by clicking here.

I’m not generally a morning person, but my parents and the crows are up at that crack of freaking dawn, so I have been as well. The gloom outside actually gave me that ah-ha moment I needed, for a place I was stuck in my novel. There was a very important scene I have been writing around, trying not to get myself stalled. Today it clicked. I know what that scene/chapter and arc will be!

Well kiddies, I am closing off this blog entry for today and back to working on Freaks and Grimm. If you are looking for something to watch on this rainy Thursday, here are some movies I suggest. If you click on them, you will be taken to the YouTube video.

“There are people who have seen The Room and those who haven’t seen The Room.” Neil Traynor

*** There will be spoilers.***

I love terrible movies. They are my happy place. The schlockier the movie the happier I am. I show no prejudice for genres and have watched them all from horror to sci-fi to romantic; silent; film noir; b-movies; romance; expressionist; westerns and comedy. If it’s considered a badly made movie, I want to see it. My current two favourites are Plan 9 From Outer Space and The Screaming Skull. In my heart of hearts I never thought any movie could knock either of those off the top of my list. Who could possibly beat Ed Woods and take his title? Always up for a bad movie challenge, I was ready, willing and open to seeing if this could take the reigns.

For MONTHS now, our good friend Neil Traynor (1) has been telling us about The Room, insistent that once we watch it, we would never be the same again. Finally we were able to arrange a viewing and as Neil said, it was life changing. It might actually be the best movie of all time. How could this be, you ask? The Room has it all. Love, sex, romance, action, violence, blood, family values, long drawn out sex scenes, drug intervention, x-files style disappearance of actors, belly button fucking, more long, drawn out sex scenes and best of all, no plot.

I’m serious. There is no plot. None. Nada. Zilch. Zero! Not only is there no plot, I personally feel that one of the reasons this movie has become such a cult hit, is you cannot, in anyway, describe to someone what the storyline is. There is an amazing Wikipedia page that has a very thorough breakdown of the movie, the characters, many of the issues with the movie and the production of The Room. However, even after reading the page, you still have no idea what exactly this movie is about. You just need to watch it.

The Room is Tommy Wiseau’s directorial debut and what a debut it is. Oh… did I mention that he also produced it, wrote it and stars in it. Mr. Wiseau is a bit of a mystery man himself. He is famous for keeping his past and personal life secret. Even the Wikipedia page about Tommy Wiseau, doesn’t reveal very much. Who is this mystery man? Is he even real? A figment of our imagination? Only way to find out, is to attend one of the many Love is Blind events happening across North America. If it comes to Toronto or even a city near here, I will be first in line to get tickets. After all, I need to know why Tommy Wiseau wears two belts. Although… he does have his own YouTube channel, called Tommy Explains It All (https://www.youtube.com/user/TommyExplainsItAll), yet… he explains nothing.

Social Media platforms such as YouTube and Facebook have helped The Room’s infamy grow.

There are many memes.

Quotes

Montages

and videos of critique.

All of this is helping to keep The Room alive. You could literally spend hours, hell, even days watching the many videos being created to celebrate this cult hit. Oh, and I can’t forget there is a Star Wars Mashup!

The Room has a huge cult following and fan-base. It also has a play, a book , a video game, a Facebook page dedicated to it, a-soon-to-be-released mocumentary, a documentary called Room Full Of Spoons and there is a movie being made about it, that James Franco is producing, directing, writing and starring in. Sound familiar! How did this movie become such a huge hit? It rivals movies such as Plan 9 and it’s huge fan base is dedicated and steadily growing. It is a phenomena with many, many unanswered questions. Like the ones I have, such as:

What happened to Peter the psychologist?Where can I rent that green screen?Where can I find that 1880’s industrial shot?How can it be sunny and smoggy at the same time?Where did that new guy come from?Will Denny survive without Johnny?Will Lisa ever find love again?Did Claudette survive the breast cancer?

Sooooooo many questions!

Back to my opening statement about this movie possibly being the best movie of all time. Let’s take a moment to think about this. When I say best movie of all time, what I mean is best terrible movie of all time. When I watched it, I laughed till I was laugh crying. I was laugh crying till my stomach hurt so bad, that I thought I was going to throw up. We discussed this movie indepth, for hours afterwards, my love and I talked about it as we were going to sleep and woke up talking about it. All of our conversations for the next several hours have been dominated by it AND we have been quoting the movie. I have spend all of my time researching the movie, Tommy Wiseau and am agonizing over what happened to the actors, needing answers to my questions and searching to find out if a “Love is Blind” event is coming to a place near us. I have been feeling all of the emotions you would after seeing a movie that blows your mind.

How does this movie compare to my current top favourites Plan 9 From Outer Space and Screaming Skull? The Room is definitely comparable in cult status to both these movies and over the top in terrible. Does it knock either of them off the top. No, but it definitely ties for top spot.

You have to see this movie. It was even shot so you can watch it 2D or 3D. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V10Px9xbrbU Apparently it wasn’t shot to be a 3D movie, Tommy Wiseau just decided to shoot with two cameras, because he could. When you watch the movie, don’t forget to say hi to Mark.

(1) Neil Traynor is a Toronto born singer/songwriter guitarist/multi-instrumentalist.